The right question that *no* one seems to be asking regarding the TSA:

[Stinky The Clown]

"What is an acceptable level of risk?"

What if we left security checks as they were? Personally, I want to see them gone COMPLETELY, and have wanted TSA disbanded on the day it was formed, but that's me being unreasonable. Anyway, if we left the security checks as they were, what's the risk of a crash due to terrorism? If there were a crash, how many people would die? What is the per capita risk among all US residents?

Whatever the risk, we have established an entire federal bureaucracy to meet it.

I suspect the per capita risk is quite small. Perhaps so small as to better be described as minuscule.

What is the per capita risk of dying due to the actions of a drunk driver?

What is the per capita risk of dying due to the actions of a distracted driver?

What is the per capita risk of dying due to the result of a food borne illness?

What is the per capita risk of dying due to jay walking?

What is the per capita risk of dying (albeit slowly) due to one's inability to buy healthy food?

What is the per capita risk of dying due to natural disasters?

We spend orders of magnitude less to protect ourselves from any of those risks than we do to protect ourselves from the smallest per capita risk mentioned.

I contend that each one of those risks - and many others - pose greater threats than does a terrorist incident on an airplane in today's climate. It is my own belief that would still be true if there were *no* screening. Every ill conceived attempt to bring down an airliner, anyplace in the world, since 9/11 has been due to passenger or crew action, not some Security Theater Of The Absurd.

If the government is so hellbent to protect us from terrorists on airplanes, disband the TSA, retrain their employees, and put the employees on airplanes.

Instead of a reasonable approach, we get hysteria and perhaps the most overreaching government affront to our personal dignity in the history of our country. We like to call ourselves the home of the free and the land of the brave. We say that even as we are neither. Instead, we are a cowardly nation of de facto crime suspects who have been had by big money interests selling useless quack devices to our government to use in training us in civil obeisance to our wealthy owners.

Dear America: Wake The Fuck Up.

[Tansy_Gold]

1. You can add to that the heightened risk of disease from the patdowns

If the TSA patter-downers don't change their gloves after EVERY SINGLE PATDOWN, they could -- and almost certainly will sooner or later -- pass along disease, including STDs.


TG

[emulatorloo]

32. How are they going to transmit STD's by patting down someone's bluejeans?

That one is sounding rather "Urban Legendish"

[LisaL]

36. Some of those who experienced these pat downs reported

that hands went into the underwear.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

37. Not everybody wears blue jeans.

Some women have complained that the TSA workers thumb has been jabbed into their vaginas.

[rgbecker]

2. I'm with you on this completely.

The sham theater at the airport started by Bush to make everyone feel safe is actually making everyone more fearful.

[liberalmuse]

3. Hell, if I want to get Cancer and STD's...

I'll do it the old-fashioned way - by smoking and screwing around. I'll be damned if I'm going to be on my death bed saying, 'Damn, I shouldn't have flown to Salt Lake City that one time'.

[Igel]

5. Wouldn't that depend on what you did in SLC?

(insert Mormon joke here)

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. I have tried to have this ADULT discussion

And here is the relevant post

No Stinky I will not bother retyping the whole exercise and I wish you luck in this discussion...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9624487

Suffice it to say there is a risk.. and there are ways to deal with it... Just that if you mention... profiling, even if you mean behavior, people jump to our ugly history of racial profiling.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. Profiling makes me nervous, but if we could find a way to *ensure* it is reasonably and fairly used

I can get behind it. I theory, it works well. In application, it is too easy to abuse.

But your thread was a discussion of tactics. My thread is about what an acceptable level of risk might be. Clearly we accept far more risk from other threats than we do for this one. That's more or less the question for which I'm seeking an answer - and a discussion.

Your thread raises some good issues, too. *If* taking big measures to counter a terror threat is the right thing to do (I am not convinced it is), which are reasonable and which are bullshit. For sure what we have now is bullshit.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. It is a question of training

I used it as a medic. It saved my bacon a few times... we just didn't call it profiling, but scene safety. Trust me, we were.

I will give you an example.

A guy shot in the chest usually does not reach into his belt buckle... so as I did my head to toe survey, starting at the belt buckle, I found a lovely 25 caliber revolver. It was really small and really cute.

And cops in the US of A are trained on it all the time. It is part of the ... look for things out of place shtick, they just don't call it that way.

I agree, our history is something to take into account. But profiling is part of it.

And I also dealt with the risks. We have about 5,000 very well and committed fighters, That is the core... that is the risk, in actual numbers. Of course the threats will NOT remain with AQ, and at one point the threat moves, like the guy down the road here. cooking PETN and other explosives. Why we need to start talking of this in actual security terms and what works.

It is needed, but the tactics are all off.

Now here is a scary thought. On the way back from fighting for Pie... I had an odd thought. It seems they turned off the machines, to avoid a PR disaster from hell... and get ahead of the message. Ok at this point we have children (and it is not about party) and a bureaucracy on automatic pilot. No, it is not about scaring us or obedience or police state... it is because we have done this forever, the insiders selling crap to the insiders, tea pot dome. So if this is not about security... and they are on automatic... that scares me even more. It also says that things are really broken at the structural level.

And no, I am not talking of the guy or gal on the front lines manning any of this gear... I am talking of their bosses at the highest levels of government.

Oh and since our Secretary of DHS... no, not just Napolitano, Chertoff too, are NOT security professionals... yes that is more scary than I could think off. That means that not so well meaning lobbyists can sell them on pink tutus and tell them that they work... and if that was possible you and I would be told to travel wearing pink tutus.

Hey at least Pistole is wiling to go through the line... and at least he came from the Emergency and security services community. If we are to take it seriously, DHS secretary should come from the community... so these idiots cannot go... SHINY. here NEW SHINY.

Now speak of scary. And this is coming from me, I've gone into fires and shoot outs and once was face to face with several kilos of C-4... and this is far scarier than that.

[highprincipleswork]

18. Get over it

There is a chance, and always will be a chance, that someone will hijack a plane.

The fact that so many, not very clever people managed to hijack so many planes on a certain day and fly them into buildings is more than a little suspicious.

However, the chance they will do this again, unless aided somehow, is miniscule.

And so, all this TSA hubbub is a farce!!!

Those who acquiesce to these actions through a state of fear are part of the problem. And if we continue to live in such fear, we won't have much of a country that's worth living in, for people who profit from fear don't tend to stop till those who care about these things actually stand up to them.

As others have said here, stand up and wake up America!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. You need to learn how to read

if that is what you got from it

[highprincipleswork]

23. Beg pardon

Sorry, I wrote this in response to another thread, and posted it in error. Does not apply, and I apologize.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. No problems we have all done that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. No problems we have all done that.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. Our society is obsessed with fear. It short-circuits everything else

Seemingly intelligent people I know (who should know better) run their lives based on it.

That's good news for the Corporatocracy, of course.

[Duppers]

7. K & R

nt

[Fumesucker]

8. A plane or two may get blown up..

But I think the likelihood of a successful hijacking and subsequent use of the plane as a missile, a la' 9/11, is zero for all practical purposes. Any hijacker trying that would probably end up being quite literally torn to pieces by the other passengers, I know I've thought about what I would do in that situation and I'm quite sure plenty of other people have as well.

Bomb sniffing dogs could take care of the vast proportion of risk regarding explosive devices..

[struggle4progress]

9. Adult conversation has never been popular in American politics, so far as I remember

And on this issue, absolutely nobody wants to deal with the Monday morning quarterbacks

Everybody recognizes there are trade-offs here between (1) a security effort that will reduce the risk of attacks while providing adequate ass-coverage when some jackass inevitably succeeds at a murderous stunt and (2) everybody's natural right to say "leave me the fuck alone"

And you can make big bucks if you know (3) what the optimal trade-off is, (4) how to convince policy makers you know what the optimal trade-off is, and (5) how to convince the public you know what the optimal trade-off is. But if you set out to do this, you will probably quickly discover there are tons of other people with different ideas loudly trying to do the same thing

[neverforget]

10. Land of the Free, Home of the Brave has turned into "I'm scared! Protect me!"

[logosoco]

11. What is the per capita risk of dying because of lack of health care?

[OrwellwasRight]

12. there is a far greater risk of dying of cancer and yet . . .

we allow oil and chemical companies to continue to legally poison us, our land, and our water each and every day.

But god forbid I get on an airplane without somebody getting to see me naked of feeling me up! All because it makes the worry wort next to me feel better!

I would fly security free airlines every time if I could. If we live in fear of terrorists, they have already won people!!!!!

what don't we get about this???

thanks for posting!

[littlewolf]

13. K & R nt

[NashVegas]

16. "I don't really care about my "rights." I don't want to die on an airplane."

I saw that today, on a Facebook comment. This was coming from someone whose profile pic shows a stereotypical 30ish, alternachick, liberal-looking woman. We are fucking, fucking, fucked.

[Antiderivative]

17. Just abolish it.

[Swamp Rat]

20. yep

[sabrina 1]

21. Actually reasonable people HAVE been asking those questions

But they have been ignored as they are inconvenient when people in government are trying to sell police state equipment that is worth billions of dollars to a lot of their Corporate donors.

I believe someone actually did work out the numbers on the risk of 'death by terror' as opposed to say, death by lack of proper health coverage. I think it was around .0006 or something like that. I am not very good at the math, but maybe others here are.

You are on the right track though, to start bringing some logic into this whole mess. We are spending trillions on fear-related issues, wars, our huge new police state bureacracies, all this is bankrupting the country. Not to mention the giving up of precious civil rights. So someone needs to start yelling 'STOP'! Let's start using some logic here!

Compare eg, the number of people who have died by terror over the past ten years to the numbers who have died as a result of having inadequate health care.

Death by Terror in Ten Years: 3,000

Death by inadequate Health Care: 444,000

If this government actually cared about National Security, they would have spent all the money they spent on wars and the police state on a National Health Care system.

I don't know how many die from murder, car accidents, plane crashes eg. Fewer people fly than drive cars eg. So we take a greater risk going to work each day than being the victim of a terrorist on a plane.

People have to draw a line in the sand and stop reacting to the Corporate State's scare tactics. Americans need to stop being such cowards. I saw a woman on TV today actually saying that she is willing to give up some rights in order to feel secure. What a perfect tool for a totalitarian government.

Anyhow, I do think it's time to get some numbers and maybe print them on cards and distribute them among the population.

However, we have a president who is friends with the CEO of Rapiscan, just as Bush was friends with many Defense contractors, so as long as our elected officials are in the business of working for Corporate America, the police state will continue to grow.

[Desertrose]

30. A police state built on fear....which trumps the reasonable voices.

Unfortuantely.

[Incitatus]

22. But the right to fly isn't stated in the Constitution so the TSA can see you naked and

touch your privates if they want.

If you don't like it don't fly.


:sarcasm:

Unfortunately, and sadly too many people on even this site think like that.

[Bill O Rights]

24. We all KNOW the numbers......

We are far more likely to die in an automobile, on a bicycle, walking on the street, getting hit by lightening, being bitten by snakes, choking on food, not to mention medical malpractice or even killed by the police than to die in the US as a result of terrorism.

What the TSA/government is doing is NOT about making us any safer, frankly, they don't CARE about us. What this is about is a massive power grab by the government and efforts to force us into the scanners so that Chertoff and company can make MILLIONS at the expense of our liberties.

From the time that I was a very young boy, my MOTHER, one of the stongest and bravest people I have ever known WARNED my to guard the Rights that are stated in the Bill of Rights.

IF WE DO NOT DEFEND EACH OTHERS RIGHTS, NO ONE WILL.

THIS IS NOT THE CHANGE THAT I VOTED FOR.

[inna]

27. We'd have Universal Health Care if they gave one damn about our "safety" and well being..

It's all bullshit.

[lunatica]

28. After 9/11 I was singled out and taken aside

but I was carrying a backpack which is what I carry instead of a purse because I carry books and writing material. They made me empty it and they ran the wand all around my body. I was a 50 something matronly woman. I understood why. It was the backpack. Why do they need to do anything more? Why not just have sniffing dogs for chemicals? Who would mind that?

[uppityperson]

29. k&r

[Politicalboi]

31. Instead of scanners that spew radiation

They need to have a glass box where you stand there and let air come from the floor, and have wasps above in a closed section which can still let air in, smell for explosives. Very simple, very very cheap. Metal detectors and the glass box and a supply of wasps is all they need.

http://www.robaid.com/bionics/wasp-hounds-sniff-explosives-and-illegal-drugs.htm

[pleah]

33. K&R

[Little Star]

34. k&r

[Gregorian]

35. It's not about passengers. It's about planes. Companies cannot afford to lose planes.

And the loss of income from people seeing planes exploding.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

38. I think they are insured

But yeah, it's about money..it always is.

[donco6]

39. Not just companies. Governments cannot afford it either.

To have a disaster occur on your watch can be bad for elections. Unless your Bush, when it makes you a hero.

[donco6]

40. It's a conversation we evidently cannot afford to have.

I think primarily because the government cannot afford to have a disaster occur on its watch. It might lose seats in Congress. Or a Presidency. And we can't have that now, can we?